Traveling the World One Day at a Time

January 2011 entries

January 17, 2011

Have a digital camera you don't need? Please donate it to our new photography project with children from a small village in Northwest Argentina. DONATION DEADLINE EXTENDED!

The Project: WichiWater

We take your old cameras and put them in the hands of Wichi children from villages all around the Salta province of Northwest Argentina. They’ll take photos of their lives, themselves. They’ll have some fun and in the process learn how to use digital cameras as well as how to interact with professional photographers both in person and online. You get to see them smile!

You get to see their photos online and in gallery and museum exhibitions across Argentina and the United States.

Our first exhibition was at the Casa de la Cultura in Salta, Argentina. People couldn't believe the photos were taken by children, let alone children who had never held a camera until a couple months earlier.

Who Are We?

A group of indigenous people who live all over the region. Often their villages do not have a clean water supply. Many times they do not have enough food or even clothing. They do have a rich culture and language that is an important part of Argentina’s heritage.

Maximiliano Mura: a multi-talented Argentine photographer originally from Buenos Aires province now living in Salta.

Ana Soruco: nutritionist from Argentina’s Jujuy province. She has been working with members of the Wichi community to help bring food, water, clothing and awareness to the people there.

Elio Néstor Fernández: founder of Idioma Wichi, a group dedicated to preserving Wichi language and culture. He is our Salta city connection to the communities around the region.

What We Need?

Your functioning digital cameras. Any kind. Any age. It's ok if they don't have all their parts or are scratched and dented. They don't need all the accessories. If the camera has it's own specific battery, it's best that that be included and working.

How To Send Your Cameras?

For people living in the United States:

You can mail the cameras directly to our Atlanta mailing address. They should arrive on or before September 1, 2011.

Any cameras that arrive before that day, I'll bring back with me to Argentina.

For people living in Argentina:

If you live anywhere other than Salta, you can send me a text to my Argentina cell 0387 15 539 4777 or e-mail me at leigh (at) cloudhead.org and we can figure a way to get them.

If you live in Salta, let's go for a coffee. You can bring them then.

For people living anywhere else:

Send your camera to the Atlanta address above. When I have a reliable Argentina address, we'll send them.

Let Us Know About You

We're designing a website, coming soon, soon, soon, that will provide more information about this and other projects we have happening through our new, soon-to-be-announced non-profit. I'd like to include your names on our sponsors page.

So please remember to include any personal and business information you'd like to see on the sponsors page. I'm happy to include links to any website or blog as well. And please send your e-mail address if you'd like to hear updates about this project and be the first to know when we post photos.

January 10, 2011

I’m often in a position where I’m the only American in the group which means I'm often asked to represent for all Americans.

Just recently, a friend of ours mentioned to Noah that whenever there's a big Couchsurfing asado at someone's house, it’s generally the Americans who will assume that it’s just a free dinner and there’s no need for them to pitch in for payment, clean up or preparation. A few weeks ago, we had a Belgian, an Argentine, one Canadian and one person from Poland in the house, and when the subject rose again, all four guests reluctantly admitted they find Americans to be the most rude when traveling.

“I Usually Don't Like Americans But You're Different"

I cannot tell you how many times I've heard this, and while it’s nice to be told that I’m an exception to being rude and unlikeable, I am as uncomfortable with the stereotyping as I would be were someone to say that Asians are bad drivers, Germans have weird sexual proclivities and the English have bad teeth because they drink too much.

I'm also pretty proud to be American even when I don't agree with the politics or president. It's a unique culture full of people who have grown up with the ideology that anything is possible, that anyone can do anything.

Yet, I’ve also had similar experiences with the Couchsurfers and guests we’ve had in our house. Rarely a week goes by when our spare bedroom and couch are empty, and while we rarely have bad guests, the only ones I can name are American.

There's a fine line between our US government given constitutional rights and plain old fashioned self-entitlement.

I have no issue with people who want to carry and use weapons, provided they are using them properly and with oversight and experience. I have no problem with political protest. In fact, I am tickled that anyone can say pretty much what they want and not be hauled away in the middle of the night.

The US is the petri dish where people feel that the only way to do anything worth a shit is to be featured in the 24 hour news cycle and volatility and violence are what gets attention. When politicians use and encourage violent rhetoric, you better believe people are going to get killed. And what makes this different from long term political and religious wars? The fact that there was nothing to fight against in the first place....

These killers are lost souls who crave recognition and something greater than themselves, and they find it in the likes of Glenn Beck. They don't even have a belief system. There is no support, No one is even there to notice that this shit is about to happen. Isolated with paranoid, poisonous rhetoric they can do with what they will are the only voices that come close to matching the anger within them. I do believe this is an American phenomenon.

Is It the Same As Crying Fire In the Proverbial Crowded Movie Theater?

Of course, no one would be spurred to mass murder simply by the words of these pundits, but perhaps our political and ideological leaders have a responsibility to curtail what they say in order to avoid what seems to be an ever increasing violence in American culture.

So who are we as Americans? What do we stand for? And if we should be calling for change, what changes would you like to see?

January 04, 2011

We had to move out of the house we'd been renting last Wednesday, and the new house is still a bit on hold due to a series of complications, so just before new year's day, we were, essentially, homeless.

Then Ani and Maxi, two friends of ours took us in. Then Mary, another good friend, invited us to her place for New Year's dinner. Then Dennis, a.k.a Victor -- because apparently Argentines simply cannot understand the name Dennis -- traded a website for his hotel in exchange for giving us a place to live for the next two weeks.

Dennis is fantastic in so many ways. Obviously, because he's given us a place to call home, but also because he walks around all day long in his bikini bathing suit and loves to chat about anything, but especially his girlfriends.

I feel like I'm in some made for TV movie. Something funny, not the cheesy sort of crap you find too often on the Lifetime network. Something you'd find maybe on HBO, you know, creative but allows nudity and obscenity. Keeping that in mind, imagine the scene that followed when we found a bat flying around our room late last night.

The hotel, Campo de Esperanza, is just a little way down the road from our last place, but there is so much more wild life here. Perhaps because of it's proximity to the river?

Mani loves the new place. This photo shows him hunting for a family of cats that lives in the the trees behind the house. Truly, he has not a chance of actually catching them. In spite of his almost fifty pound heft, he's a puppy at heart and the white mama cat easily intimidates him.

Yes, that about sums up life right about now. Am I frustrated? Yes. Am I grateful? Absolutely. The sheer number of people who have helped us most definitely takes the edge off our uncertainty.

Besides, this isn't the first time we've been homeless. It's just the first time that we've done it with a dog and a couch.